Muslim leaders have given warning against “malicious” intervention by third parties into legitimate arranged marriages.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has welcomed plans to allow third parties to take legal steps to protect young people from being forced to marry a person. But it has urged the Government to ensure that cultural norms are safeguarded. Those given the new powers should receive training, the council said.

Muslims and other minority groups in Britain with a tradition of arranged marriage say that the issue is not one of faith, but of culture. Arranged marriages have long been practised in the East and among many religious groups, including some Orthodox Jews. The wide variety of practice ranges from introductions offered by relatives or others in the community to a mutually agreed union between strangers, sometimes from different countries. Forced marriage has totally different connotations.

Reefat Drabu, of the MCB’s family affairs committee, said that as marriage without consent was illegal in Islam, measures to prevent it were “a positive step. But to empower a third party to act on behalf of young people must carry accountability and responsibility. That third person must be aware of what is forced marriage and be aware of the general nuances of the culture.”

Draft guidelines published by the MCB for mosques condemn forced marriage as “unIslamic”.